The Visionary Bureaucracy: Boring, Female, Expansive, Cross-Border

Talk 1: The Boring Revolution: Remaking Bureaucracy for this Century

We are at war with our future and the diversity of life on the whole planet. During the “Great Acceleration”, a few humans have drained the Earth’s fossil energy battery millions of times faster than it was created by daily photosynthesis. The planetary future has been burdened with huge debts that are now being communitarised, and a future that must be built together. All tolerable developments require a “Great Deceleration” in fossil resource consumption, including the realignment of societal priorities, economic activities and policies – within the next months (IPCC 2022).

How do bureaucracies scaffold the great transition without defaulting towards disaster capitalism or authoritarianism?

The transformation of our capacity to administer the planet itself has to become a question of global peace and collective survival. If bureaucracy strengthens our agency and capability to act, we can fundamentally change the way we feed, power or move ourselves – within this decisive age.

Speaker: Indy Johar, Dark Matter Labs

Talk 2: Navigating Old Power Structures as a Young Woman

What would it take to make our public institutions more diverse, better reflecting our societies? More equal, more feminist, more modern and approachable with policymaking approaches that listen to all views and act on them?

Party politics and higher public administration positions have long been occupied by older white men. While things are starting to change, there’s still a long way to go.

At just 29 years old, Djuna Bernard is not only an elected politician but co-lead of the Luxembourg Green Party, Déi Gréng, and vice president of the national parliament. In this talk she shares her experiences as a young female politician in a country where the national parliament is only 1/3 female and just 2 of 60 MPs are under 35. She explores both the need for deep change, and the multiple ways that embracing such young, female or non-conventional (or non-mainstream) views could transform our public institutions and society at large for the better.

Speaker: Djuna Bernard, déi gréng (Luxembourgish Green Party)

Talk 3: EXPAND: How to Stretch the Future by Design

Today, it can seem as if the world has nothing but problems. Climate crisis, pandemic, and conflict. To address our complex challenges, policy makers need to embrace a more expansive way of thinking. In this session, Christian Bason, a leading authority on innovation and design for government, will share six “expansions” across Time, Proximity, Life, Value, Dimensions and Sectors which can empower you to think differently to design a more sustainable world.

Speaker: Christian Bason, Danish Design Center

Talk 4: Innovation Diplomacy: Cross-Border Collaboration to Save the Climate

The session explores the notion of innovation diplomacy. Not yet a widely known concept, innovation diplomacy uses new ideas and technology to build relations between governments with a focus on delivering shared policy outcomes and better public services.

Innovation diplomacy is the idea at the heart of the CivTech Alliance’s COP26 Global Scale-Up Programme, a highly ambitious programme that brought together 8 government innovation teams (including the US, Estonia, Australia and Scotland), and 3 academic institutions from 10 countries to give 18 climate tech companies an unprecedented international market access and opportunity in the run up to and during COP26.

Speakers: 

Alexander Holt, CivTech Alliance, Scottish Government
Eva Sonnenmoser, InnolabBW, State Government of Baden-Württemberg